


In the Balance

by AndreFuture



Series: In the Balance [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Anal Sex, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Everyone Is Gay, Gay Male Character, Gay Sex, Gray Jedi, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-03-03 02:28:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13331580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreFuture/pseuds/AndreFuture
Summary: After his banishment from the Jedi Order, Kariban has operated as a free agent, guided by his own principles of fairness and driven by a desire to achieve Bendu, the ancient belief in the balance of light and dark sides of the Force. The Zabrak has spent the past several years of his exile traveling the galaxy seeking ancient Sith artifacts to develop his power in the dark side. Kariban’s commitment is put to the test when a recent Force vision suggests that the way to peace means aiding a dangerous enemy, possibly risking the Republic’s and the entire galaxy’s future.





	1. Visionary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over a month ago, Kariban arrived on the planet Voss to find help discerning cryptic Force visions. With the aid of a Voss Mystic and the wisdom of an old Jedi spirit, he comes to discover that his quest to achieve balance may have been preparation for an even greater challenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read this prior to March 2018, please note that I've edited this quite a bit since I first posted Chapter 1.
> 
> Feedback is appreciated!

**K** ariban had the strange vision again this month. They were practically a regular occurrence for him since he was first brought into the Jedi Order. But after nearly three decades, the most recent Force visions—they had to be more than mere dreams—were growing in vividness and punctuated with a sense of urgency.

They were set during the quiet moments before dawn, in that strange, dreamlike space between darkness and light, before night resolves into day. A thin band of orange crept along the horizon, the sun not yet broken free from sleep.

There were many versions of the vision. They nearly always began with Kariban and a hooded figure standingon a platform overlooking a vast, multilevel cityscape. Massive skyscrapers towered over the urban sprawl below. It reminded him of a holo he’d seen of Galactic City, the world-sized metropolis of Coruscant, densely packed with buildings that thrust thousands of meters into the sky. Yet in the vision, all of the buildings lay empty, a mausoleum to an aborted future. They were always like this, the visions, even before the Sith attacked the planet fifteen years ago. Vacant. Dead. Ruined.

Kariban stood watching, not quite a part of the space. Indeed, his light coloring stood in contrast to the gloom around him. He came from the paler stock of Zabrak, the kind that preferred flowing bands of facial tattoos to the black webs of his red-hued kin. His species’ custom of tattooing had the effect of not only obscuring emotions, but gave depth to his otherwise delicate, doll-like face, its smooth symmetry reflected in his high cheekbones, flat nose, and softly curved lips _._ T hrough the darkness, his almond shaped eyes glowed cautiously gold. Watching, weary of the only other living being in the space.

The hooded figure had their back turned towards Kariban, dressed in black from head to toe. Though the air was still, the robe wafted around eerily like smoke. Against the dim, pre-dawn light, they looked more specter than person.

Had the two of them stood side by side, Kariban would have come up to their broad shoulders, the other person being tall and physically imposing. Well-built but short statured, Kariban looked diminutive in comparison. There were several paces between the two of them, yet in the extraordinary silence, their voices would have carried far had either dared to speak.

In a fluid movement, the hooded figure stretched out their arms and immediately, a radiant web of purple-white lightning erupted from their hands, crackling against the somber sky. Energy sprang along their limbs, shoulders, across their chest, and down their entire body.

Kariban felt parallel chills run through his own body, coursing up to the set of small horns on his head. He recalled that a powerful presence of the dark side gave off a sensation of coldness. But this was beyond cold—it was an intense, gelid feeling unlike anything he had ever experienced. It felt like all the ice on the snow planet of Hoth had concentrated into him, sinking into his bones. This person was exceptionally dark. Exceptionally evil.

“Who are you?” The sound dripped from Kariban’s tan, tattooed lips, thick and heavy like Nal Hutta sludge, so unlike his own smooth baritone. It reverberated strangely between the roars of electricity that surged through the unscathed figure.

Slowly, the person turned towards him, but Kariban couldn’t see the face. He never could. The figure was hardly more than an inky outline within a tangle of explosive light.

Except the eyes. There were definitely eyes. Angry, red, glowing eyes.

Sith.

At this part of the vision, the person would usually point at him, and Kariban would awaken with a shout, panting and covered in sweat, barely perceiving he was safe from the shock that nearly ravaged his body. This time Kariban didn’t wake up, but remained fixed in the dream space. He flinched instinctively when the hand moved in his direction, and braced himself for the inevitable blow.

His heart thudded loudly against his ribcage. Silence. A pause.

And then…nothing.

No shock. No pain. No explosion of violent energy. Kariban was still unharmed. For now, anyway.

Electricity continued to erupt from the Sith’s body, a dazzling blaze of crackling, lethal violet-white. Kariban realized the figure’s hand wasn’t pointing at him but was open towards him. The Sith wasn’t trying to hurt him, the Sith was seeking his help.

“What do you want from me?”

“Balance.” The voice was deep and sultry, and distinctly male.

Kariban frowned. “What do you mean?”

The hooded Sith continued to burn with energy as he and Kariban stood on the platform high above the desolate city.

“Balance,” he said again. He beckoned Kariban to come closer.

Were this real life, Kariban would have drawn his lightsaber and cut down the Sith. But he had no weapons in this vision, nor, strangely enough, a desire to fight. Instead, he stepped forward. It took what seemed to be all his willpower to move—his body felt heavy and numb, as if he, as if time itself was frozen.

As he came nearer, the ropes of lightning licked at Kariban’s skin. It was a sharp, icy sensation that penetrated through his bones and coursed through every nerve in his body. He knew it couldn’t be healthy to expose himself to it. Still, he felt compelled to move forward.

The man reached up and pulled back his hood, revealing the face of a pureblood Sith. He had the haughty look of the species, arrogance that Kariban recognized was not mere self-importance, but backed by immeasurable power.

The word ‘statuesque’ came to mind when Kariban got a good look at him. His was a fierce, predatory profile, set with wide, high cheekbones and narrow, snake-like eyes. With each flash of lightning, his flared nostrils and sensuous full lips were highlighted in view. Fleshy tendrils hung from his cheeks and chin, giving the impression that his skin was melting from his face. Short, black curls tumbled loosely above his eyes and seemed soft enough to touch, yet for the ominous way they absorbed the light.

Once upon a time, Kariban may have called the man handsome. But his beauty was corrupted by the dark side now. Deep creases marred his face, bruised craters encircled his eyes, and putrid-looking veins ran under the surface of his skin. Instead of the vibrant crimson of his species, the Sith’s skin had a sickly, ashen tone. He seemed lifeless, except for his intense, blood-red eyes. The effect of the dark side made it hard to guess how old the Sith was, but Kariban thought that beneath the decay may be a man who was thirty or somewhere near his own age.

Lightning continued to crackle around him as the Sith repeated his appeal. “Balance. I need balance. The galaxy needs balance.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Balance brings peace. I can bring peace.”

Kariban’s gaze flickered up and down him. “That’s rich coming from a Sith,” he said after a pause.

Of course the galaxy needed peace, it was what Kariban had fought for his whole life. And the one thing that thwarted peace at every turn was the Sith. The moral center of the Empire, the Sith stood for destruction and violence and death. They stopped at nothing to satisfy their quest for power. Peace was anathema to the Sith.

“I can bring peace,” the hooded man repeated, “but I must have balance.”

“You’re a Sith. Everything you stand for goes against peace.”

“ _Ashla. Bogan. Bendu_.”

Kariban knew those ancient Je’daii words: light, dark, balance. He had been fascinated by the wisdom of the bygone Order since his first history course as a youngling. The old Je’daii Order believed light and dark were neither good nor bad, but essential parts of the Force. It was understood that a person should not fall too far to either side but seek continual balance, meditating on the light side when consumed by darkness, pursuing the dark when overwhelmed by light.

The philosophy had resonated with a teenage Kariban, who had found it hard to ignore the growing passions he was instructed to put aside. But the reformed Jedi had abandoned _Bendu_ thousands of years ago, aligned themselves exclusively with the light side, and declared the dark side an evil to be purged from the galaxy. Kariban’s interest in balance was  nothing short of heretical, and amid growing scandal and betrayal, he was eventually forced to leave the Order.

Kariban may have understood the dark side was necessary to achieve balance, but it didn’t mean he was willing to help this Sith—the Jedi tenet of compassion be damned.

Sensing Kariban’s hesitation, the man repeated the ancient words, slowly and deliberately.

“ _Ashla. Bogan. Bendu_ ,” he said. “You, I, we must have balance, for peace.”

“You’re too far gone,” Kariban countered. A Sith as visibly corrupted as this one was beyond redemption. “You can never have balance.” 

“Then you doom us all.” The Sith turned away from Kariban, his robes snapping angrily behind him. He reached out as if he were grasping the edge of the sky, then yanked his arm downward.

A renewed explosion of lightning shot forth from the man’s body, and Kariban stumbled backwards from the gust. The weak band of light that clung to the horizon was snuffed out and the world was plunged into darkness.

***

“What did you see?” A thin, metallic voice asked.

The gloom of the vision dissolved into a soft light. Kariban rubbed his his forehead. His arms were stiff and clumsy, as though his blood was ice, as though he were still in the presence of the Sith.

Yet the room was comfortably warm. Kariban was back in the meditation demichamber on Voss, a simple imitation of the rooms that outsiders like him would never set foot in. Chambers that were reserved for the hallowed Voss Mystics and their infallible visions.

The demichamber was a grey, circular, windowless space, typical of the people’s style. Around him, heavy baseboards and wooden beams were carved with geometric symbols of Voss lore. The room was somber yet beautiful, designed to facilitate deep meditation through the balance of curves and subtle details emerging from the monochromic pallet. After weeks of visiting the demichamber, Kariban had experienced the most powerful of his visions yet.

“I finally saw his face,” he said as soon as he could speak. “He was a Sith. He wanted me to help him become balanced with both sides of the Force.”

Kariban and his host were sitting on the stone floor atop emerald green mats. The patterned red face of the Mystic stared at him from under her hood with a blank expression, belying what was genuine curiosity. Her blue, compound eyes glowed unblinkingly at Kariban.

“That is not surprising, given your journey.”

No, it wasn’t. Kariban had spent the last several years traveling the galaxy, seeking ancient knowledge that he used for himself to become balanced, surpassing the constraints of light and dark. Time and again, his quest brought him into contact with the Sith through their holocrons and manuscripts and tombs. Even the ghosts of Sith Lords had acted towards him with some deference, as though they sensed he was connected to them in some way. Kariban had the growing suspicion that the Sith were more than merely incidental to his journey.

“You must help the Sith,” the woman continued.

“I’d sooner eat Hutt shit.”

The Mystic was unmoved by her guest’s colorful language. “Defy the vision? You are not a reasonable one.”

Kariban’s eyes narrowed. “I _am_ reasonable,” he said in a low voice.  If there was anything that gave Kariban’s life purpose it was reason. It grounded every decision he made, including his pursuit of balance. To say he was offended was an understatement.

“You don’t understand,” he continued. He scoured his mind for the right word to describe what he’d experienced on the platform. “This wasn’t just any Sith. He was pure evil.”

“More evil than the Emperor?”

Kariban had never seen the Sith Emperor. Very few had and lived to tell the tale. But if the stories were true, the Emperor was marred beyond recognition. More dead than alive—had actually died several times over, inhabiting new bodies when the old ones had outlived their usefulness to him. When Kariban though about it, the Sith in the vision may have been visibly corrupted, but there still seemed to be a bit of life, a bit of hope, in him. Still, the iciness Kariban felt was the hallmark of an exceedingly powerful dark side user.

“I don’t know,” Kariban said. He refused to admit defeat. “But the Sith’s presence was unmistakably cold. It froze me from the inside out.”

“Visions glimpse into time,” said the Mystic. “Details may be imprecise if the one who sees is _Laak-At_. ” If he didn’t know any better, Kariban would have thought he caught the Mystic sneering.

For all their stoicism, nothing excited Voss more than their disdain of outsiders. Outsiders like him were tolerated at best. It didn’t matter that Kariban had proven himself by completing their Trials, a rare feat for anyone, let alone a foreigner. Or that he had Force visions with such frequency that they could have rivaled those of the prophetic Voss Mystics. Voss simply did not like anyone who was not Voss.

They believed that they were the chosen people of the Force, that their visions were always accurate, and that everyone else was _Laak-At_ , not chosen or more literally, ‘redundant.’ The Mystics, the totalitarian rulers of the Voss, had developed their own understanding the Force and were unimpressed by the bickering among light side and dark side users as the Jedi and Sith had done for millennia. Even without probing into their mind with the Force, Kariban knew his place among the Voss was tenuous.

“To be sure, I am not Voss,” he said humbly. When all else failed, Kariban found an ego-stroke worked for nearly all species. “But with your wisdom, you’ve guided me in my visions. I’m confident of what I felt, of what I saw.”

“Then why resist the vision?” the Mystic asked pointedly.

 _Because it feels like the right thing to do, that’s why_.

It wasn’t particularly convincing. And it certainly didn’t help his case about being reasonable.

“The Sith in my vision was beyond anything that could be balanced,” Kariban explained. “He was corrupted. He’s gone too far into the dark side.”

“You mean he is extreme,” the Mystic said.

“Yes. He’s extreme.”

“You were extreme, once. In the light side.”

A muscle shifted in Kariban’s jaw. What the Mystic suggested was outrageous—that the Jedi and Sith were one in the same. It was true that their alignments were opposites—light and dark, day and night, compassion and ruthlessness. And yes, compared to the Voss, who pursued neither side of the Force to the exclusion of the other, the Jedi and Sith were ‘extreme’ ends of the Force. But for all of their faults, the Jedi ultimately stood for the greater good. The Sith only cared about power, and stopped at nothing to achieve it.

“They’re not the same. At all,” Kariban said. “The Jedi have always wanted peace.”

“Jedi kill for peace,” the Mystic observed. “Sith also kill for what they want.”

“We don’t kill because we enjoy it, but because we have to.”

_We?_

Kariban caught himself. There was no ‘we’—the Jedi Council had made sure of that. He was hardly resentful of his exile, though. They were conservative, dogmatic prudes who cared more about propriety and keeping the status quo, willing to ruin his reputation to save that of a more powerful man. Yet, here he was, defending them against a being who saw the Jedi as nothing more than an aberration in the Force. Clearly, he was still shaken up from the vision.

“ _Laak-At_ do not understand the Force,” the Mystic replied. “You play with it and make war with it. You do not understand its true nature. It is neither good nor evil. The Force simply is _._ ”

Kariban swallowed, trying to moisten his dry throat. “So, you think I should actually help this Sith, whoever he is, find balance?”

“The vision is what it is. Follow its wisdom, or succumb to it in ignorant defiance. That is for you to decide.”

A Jedi—well, former Jedi—obviously could achieve balance. After all, a desire for peace and a desire for balance weren’t so radically different, were they? But a Sith motivated by power by any means necessary—it was impossible. The vision, for all its visual clarity, had only brought Kariban more confusion.

“I think I need to meditate on this,” he said apologetically.

“As you wish.”

It had taken Kariban weeks of careful observation, but he’d finally learned to discern the Voss’ mood through their sedate front. He knew that he’d exhausted his host’s patience when she stood up and, after closing her eyes a heartbeat longer, bowed her farewell and slipped out the door. Most likely, she was returning to the Tower of Prophesy, to her own proper meditation chamber, away from unreasonable outsiders.

Except doubt was hardly unreasonable. Who could believe a blood-eyed Sith was the key to peace? Kariban sighed and leaned into his lap. His gaze drifted to the bright green mat where his Mystic host had sat.

The Voss obviously could. Visions had helped their species survive centuries of attacks by the Gormak, though they were severely outnumbered. Kariban thought of his host and her Force vision that had convinced her to take a foreigner like him in the first place. Voss Mystics were never wrong, no matter how strange or unbelievable their visions seemed.

That wasn’t reason, that was faith. The Voss could be as confident as they liked in their prophesies. For his part, Kariban needed a practical way to approach this.

While he sat in the demichamber, his mind kept going back to the days when his visions were enigmatic, when there was still excitement in their uncertainty. Like an explorer seeking uncharted lands, it was thrilling making sense of their meaning. Take the ambiguous sky, for example. He always wondered: did it mean sunrise or sunset? Rebirth or death? Perhaps a standoff; a battle with a powerful enemy or personal demons?

Now, there wasn’t much uncertainty left. Kariban had finally seen the Sith. Saw the Sith’s face. Heard the Sith’s voice. He was sure of what the vision meant. He just wasn’t sure that he was ready to do what he needed to do.

Kariban felt tension in his hands and realized that he’d clenched them into fists. He uncurled his fingers with conscious effort and relaxed the muscles in his hands. The effect flowed down his arms, cascading through his shoulders and back. The Force eased things along, eased him along, until his whole body tingled with its energy. He breathed generously, focusing on each inhalation and slow stream of air as it left his lungs.

Meditation was one of the first arts a new Jedi initiate mastered. It came to Kariban as naturally as breathing. Reflexively, whenever he felt agitation or fear, he reached out to the Force to center himself.

This newest Force vision was certainly giving him plenty of agitation. Unless there was some hidden meaning behind _Bendu_ and evil Sith lords, Kariban was supposed to help the enemy master the light side of the Force.  It not only was absurd in theory, but made no practical sense.

How exactly was he supposedto find the man in his vision—put out a galaxy-wide inquiry for a powerful Sith bent on galactic domination? That was only what, the whole Dark Council and every single dark side user in the entire Empire? Well, he had to be a male Sith pureblood. The Sith Empire was overrun with humans, so that cut the number down quite a bit, actually.

And once the Sith was kind enough to reply to his call, what then? Kariban supposed all that’d be left would be to help the Sith achieve balance with the Force, and peace and goodwill would flow throughout the galaxy.

Piece of glaze cake.

A loud breath exploded from him. Kariban had lost track of his breathing, had been holding it in, in fact. And his hands had betrayed him into fists again. He cursed under his breath. Sitting alone in this room wasn’t doing him any good.

Outside, daylight bid its farewell, a gentle wave of red-gold clouds and orange sky. Kariban made his way through the Alien Enclave Market, what was more or less a commercialized path between the meditation demichamber and the eclectic neighborhood maintained specially for outsiders like himself. On either side of him, merchants packed up their wares, stacking trunks andshutting down their transaction stations. Colorful fabric awnings flapped over wooden stalls, islands of teal and green above a sea of ochre grassland. Street lamps glowed with turquoise light crystals along the path, now fully illuminated in the fading starlight. Trees, branches heavy with bronze and crimson foliage, stretched against the jagged, rocky brown terrain. Flora, land, sky, everything coalesced into a languid haze of colors, enveloping the planet in a perpetual state of autumn.

There was an inexplicable harmony between the bright, organic colors and the dark geometrics of the built landscape. Far from clashing, what one lacked the other complimented, as though each smoky block of stepping stone was placed just so to accentuate the tawny blades of grass. The view made Kariban thoughtful, or rather, it made him abandon specific thoughts and instead drew him into the present. It was a kind of visual meditation, one that engaged his senses in a way that sitting in a dimly lit room couldn’t.

Not that there was anything wrong with sitting in a dimly lit room. For years, he’d gained insight through precisely that form of meditation. It was how he’d first discerned his path of balance. As each vision manifested itself, it built upon the last like a newly laid puzzle piece. Until now, the puzzle had been intriguing, but this newest piece perplexed him with what it implied. 

Meditation alone wasn’t going to to be enough. The last half hour in the demichamber had proven that much. Kariban needed guidance. It was why he’d come to Voss in the first place. Despite his host’s desire to help, there remained that impenetrable Vossian distrust between them. Kariban needed someone who understood him and thought like him. Someone like Master Teylar Suvi.

Suvi was a Zabrak, like him. In her time, she was called a Grey Jedi, neither light not dark. Like Kariban, she had also mastered the dark side without falling prey to its corrupting influence. Many had chalked it up to her species’ natural hardiness, but she believed her confidence in balance was what had preserved her.

Master Suvi and Kariban had never met, not in the conventional sense. She died centuries ago; it was her spirit that had appeared to Kariban rummaging among ruins. Perhaps it was their shared Zabrak heritage, or a distant blood relation, or their interest in _Bendu_. Whatever connection they shared, it made it easier for Suvi’s spirit to overcome the toll it usually took to commune with the living. Over the years as he tr aveled, Kariban consulted with the Jedi Master. She had been invaluable to him in his exile, a source of stability that the Order had once provided.

Kariban reached the entrance of his building and let himself in. His room was simply furnished with the basics that a visitor might want: a bed, wardrobe, desk, lamp, and chair. Everything was beautifully rendered in fine angles and subtle curves of mahogany, owing as much to the Voss’ technological simplicity as to their appreciation for the natural world. The room, like the building, like everything else the Voss built, was elegant but not entirely inviting, a subtle reminder of Kariban’s place as an outsider. Accepted, but temporary. A guest residing but by the generosity of the Voss.

The feeling wasn’t entirely one-sided. Kariban declined to make use of the wardrobe, instead leaving his belongings in a chest he kept locked at the foot of his bed. In it were the few items he’d amassed over the years in exile. There was a particular artifact that he now sought, which, when he found it, he placed on top of the chest.

He knelt, and after a moment of quiet reflection, the Jedi Master appeared.

“Hello, my child. I trust you are well.”

Kariban bowed his head. “Master Suvi,” he said.

Suvi shimmered a ghostly translucent blue-white. Her complexion in life had been swarthy, her face creased with years and tattooed in meandering waves. Unlike most Zabrak, she had a full head of hair, dusted grey with age and combed into three, shoulder-length braids. Battle armor gleamed under her cloak as she stood at parade rest, shoulders straight, legs apart, hands clasped behind her back.

“You move closer every day to achieving your destiny.”

“That’s…not at all ominous,” Kariban said, sounding slightly concerned.

Suvi cocked her head, looking at him with sympathetic eyes. “Do you fear your responsibility?”

Kariban made a dismissive noise. “Of course not. I can convert a Sith in my sleep.”

“Conversion to the light side isn’t the issue, but achieving balance.”

“Right,” Kariban muttered. Semantics. “Even easier.”

Suvi knew Kariban’s temperament, yet found him the more endearing for it.

“You’re being facetious, but I know it masks your fear,” she commented. “You think you aren’t capable of succeeding?”

For nearly ten years, Kariban had traveled the galaxy, amassing knowledge and honing his skills as a fighter. He had battled assassination droids, mutated beasts, and tomb guardians; had piloted getaway ships; had bound to his service a host of powerful ghosts. He had repeatedly stared down death and laughed in its face. Kariban had achieved what was supposed to be the impossible—balance with the light and dark sides of the Force. What was a single, nasty Sith, really?

“You’re right, Master Suvi. It’s silly of me to worry.”

The elder Zabrak held up a hand. “Don’t push your fear away,” she corrected. “Fear is a valid emotion. Acknowledge your fear. Trust it, understand where it comes from. Only then can you overcome it.”

His tongue had formed another clever quip, but he knew the Master was right.

_Acknowledge your fear._

“Fine,” Kariban sighed, clasping his hands together. “I’m afraid. Terrified, actually. But, it’s not that I fear I won’t succeed. I’m afraid that I will, and that I’ll be helping the Empire conquer the galaxy. Everything that I’ve done was because I wanted to fight for peace. Developing my combat skills and delving into the dark side, it was all was so I could become strong enough to fight the enemy. But now, based on this newest vision, I went through all of that just so I could turn around and hand the galaxy over to a Sith.”

“There must be something about this Sith that connects you to him through this vision.”

“In the vision, he said I would ‘doom us all’ if I refused to help him.”

“That’s a strong warning if I’ve ever heard one,” the woman said sagely. “And yet you hesitate.”

Kariban knew it was dangerous business deciding the future on a dream. “The Mystics would call me _Laak-At_ for saying this, but Force visions aren’t prophesies. The future i s always changing. What I saw is only one possibility of what might happen. There’s no guarantee that I’m supposed to help this Sith.”

“Yes,” she replied, “visions are powerful guides, but they aren’t predictions, and they can be clouded by the subconsciousness.”

“Then you understand why I don’t actually want to go through with this?”

Master Suvi looked at him with softness in her deep green eyes. “It’s a reasonable fear. I know the future no better than you do, but we can do our best to discern it.”

“It’s possible that they’re not visions at all,” Kariban wondered aloud. “Maybe a Sith artifact is making me think I’m having Force visions when it’s really just manipulating me to do the dark side’s bidding.”

“Perhaps. You’ve had many visions over the years. It’s influence would have been working on you for quite some time.”

That was true. Kariban had his first vision when he was a small child, the night before the Jedi took him. Every vision wasn’t exactly the same, but there was a theme, some common thread that tied them together. He barely remembered much from that early period of his life. But he remembered that first vision, as intense as the grip of his mother’s arms around him, before he slipped from her forever. He doubted he even knew what an artifact was back then.

“I’ll admit it’s a long shot,” Kariban replied. “I’m just thinking of all the possibilities.”

“There are infinite possibilities. But,” Suvi cautioned, “they’re not equally probable.”

“I know.”

“So, how do you want to proceed?”

What Kariban wanted was to go back. He wanted his old visions, when he stood on that platform at the cusp of day, when there was endless potential in the balance of light and dark _._ He wanted visions that excited him, that inspired him. He wanted visions that  reverberated something deep within him, a promise of what he might one day achieve. He wanted peace.

Instead, he said, “I want to know that what I’m about to do is the right thing to do. There’s too much at risk to be wrong about this. I want some certainty.”

“Nothing is for certain. But you know enough to make an informed decision. That’s as close to certain as you can get.”

Outside in the hallway, a Voss guard went into a short coughing fit. Kariban envied them. Whatever the Voss Mystics predicted, it was to be. Mystics were infallible. Their destinies certain. The species was outnumbered on their own planet by enemies who wanted them dead. Yet, time and again, the Voss prevailed over the Gormak because they knew they would. They had foreseen it.

Kariban could never have faith like that. Faith was unreasonable.

He and the Jedi Master talked through his options. Option one: Kariban wouldn’t help the Sith (this was the most sensible). In that case, the galaxy might be doomed, or the Sith was just bluffing. Or, Kariban suspected, the ‘we’ was the Empire that would be doomed. In all probability, if he didn’t act upon the vision, the status quo would remain: the Sith Empire would continue its quest to conquer the galaxy, the Republic would continue to fight back, billions upon billions of lives would get caught in between, and Kariban would lend his aid to the fight for peace like countless others did before him and countless others would do after. Endless war was the heartbeat of the galaxy. Without some change, there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t keep on going just the same _._

Option two: Kariban would help the Sith master the light side of the Force. This would result in either an absurdly powerful Sith who almost surely would _not_ be a peaceful dictator, or if the Sith of the vision  was to be believed, the Sith’s newfound equilibrium would make him more benevolent, and under his rule he would usher in a new era of peace.

Kariban would have to be high on spice to believe that would ever happen.

Master Suvi chuckled. She admitted that it did seem farfetched, given what they knew about the Sith.

“But you have to consider the Force visions themselves. You’ve had so many of them, it’s hard to believe it’s mere coincidence.”

“So,” he said despondently, “I take it you’re leaning towards the second option?”

“Think about it, Kariban. Why are you of all people having these Force visions? You’ve had several over the years, each time building upon each other. And what does it mean that they’re becoming so frequent and clear at this moment?”

“Well, I have been eating more vegetables.”

Suvi gave him a flat look.

“Kariban.”

“Master Suvi,” he said apologetically. “I’m beyond appreciative of your counsel and wisdom. But—how do I say this? You’re starting to sound like the Voss Mystics.”

“I’m not being esoteric,” she said pointedly. “I’m going over the facts. The facts are, you’ve had an unprecedented number of Force visions. You possess skills and knowledge that few others have. You’re uniquely positioned to make a difference.”

“I’m not the first disgraced Jedi to learn a couple of dark side tricks.”

“You know perfectly well I don’t mean ‘a couple of dark side tricks.’ Do you know how many Sith have died trying to learn Force Walking? And your visions themselves suggest you have an important role in all of this. You’d be foolish to think you’re just another pawn fighting in this endless war.”

“I see myself more of a rook, actually.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I know, I know.” All this talk sounded dangerously like faith and destinies and things that were decidedly not rational. Kariban was anxious all over again. They’d come back full circle to his dilemma: was it reasonable to help a Sith based on a dream?

“Don’t you think you’re putting too much weight in my visions?” He folded his hands in his lap, mindful that they threatened to clench up again. “I know Force visions are rare, but perhaps I’m just particularly sensitive to the Force. Anyway, it doesn’t mean I’m the one who’s responsible for bringing balance just because I’m the one having the visions. I could just be the messenger.”

“You know what they say about messengers who bear bad news.”

“If I help this Sith and I’m wrong, my death would be the least of my worries.”

“Ah,” Suvi said knowingly. Kariban waited for her to continue, but she just smiled at him like a witless child. Kariban felt a sting of irritation.

_Is that what_ _she_ _thinks I am?_ _A silly child?_

“Seems you’ve figured everything out, huh?” he said flatly.

“No, I’ve figured _you_ out,” Suvi said.  Now she was taking a turn at being clever. It almost made Kariban want to apologize for his own behavior.

“I’m dying to hear,” he said, a wry smile on his lips, then added, “Figuratively, of course.”

Master Suvi cut him a look, but continued on with the same even tone. “You’ve been on your own for what, a decade now, haven’t you? You’d just gone through your first attempt of the Jedi Trials when the situation with Master Deceivar happened.”

 _The situation_.

Kariban’s mouth twitched. It was a curious way to describe the blackmail that had forced him from the Order _._ He pushed down the dark feeling that was starting to  boil in his belly, forced it with a deep breath, and listened as Suvi went on.

“When you left, you were on your own,” she continued. “You traveled the galaxy and accomplished seemingly impossible feats. You took great risks and faced dangerous odds, but you were always on your own. If you underestimated your enemy, it was only you who suffered the consequences. But now, with what this vision is suggesting, the entire galaxy hangs in the balance, and that terrifies you.”

“I can only imagine what your deductive skills were like when you were alive,” he said dryly.

“I’m saying all of this,” Suvi said, “because I can empathize. I’ve been there. I was faced with a hard choice. It wasn’t the right choice, and I paid for it with my life. But I have no regrets. I did the best I could with what I knew. I had to act. Doing nothing wasn’t an option.”

The words settled upon him, like damp, heavy air before a storm. He felt his stomach tighten and a new emotion threatened. It moved upwards through his chest and into his throat like bile. His pulse quickened.

“I really don’t like where this is going.”

“You’re smart, Kariban. And you’re thoughtful. For all the wise cracks you make, I know you take your responsibilities seriously. I’ve watched you over the years. I’ve seen you shine when it’s time to be decisive, even if it’s a hard choice to make. And I know you’ll do the right thing and succeed. It’s what you always do.”

The hooded figure reappeared in his mind’s eye. The glowing, blood-red eyes. The arrogant sneer. The blaze of electric violet. The coldness. The gloom.

It was a hard choice. It went against everything that Kariban understood, everything that was reasonable. But he knew what he had to do. He knew when he first heard the Sith speak. It was obvious. Too obvious. So obvious that he hoped beyond hope that he was wrong.

“I suppose…I need to find this Sith, then.”

“That’s a task which I’m sure you’re more than capable of doing,” Master Suvi replied. “For now, I must preserve my energy.”

Kariban hadn’t realized until then just how long they’d been speaking. The Jedi Master had grown dim, was barely an outline of her spirit self.

“Thank you, Master Suvi,” he said. “As always.”

“We will speak again.”

The air shimmered, releasing its hold of the apparition. The elderly Zabrak faded from view, and Kariban was once more alone.


	2. Uncommitted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After consulting with his spirit confidant, Kariban isn’t exactly convinced that helping the Sith in his vision is the path to peace, but decides at the very least he’ll try to find the Sith pureblood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many apologies for the delay in releasing this chapter. I ended up spending a lot of time developing backstory, skipping ahead, and creating two spin-off stories and three other stories in another SF/F franchise while simultaneously working on this. Then this chapter got so long that I had to break it up into several chapters. 
> 
> Also note that I went back and made adjustments to Chapter 1 after learning more about the SWTOR timeline and locations. I also heavily edited the prose because I’m a silly perfectionist. Enjoy!

**K** ariban wasn’t one to shy away from unconventional means. He was probably the only person in the galaxy who managed to use spent fuel cells and energy pudding to subdue a charging Tuk’ata. But teaching a Sith balance with the Force made as much sense as a planet lowering its defense grid for an invading fleet. All in the name of peace.

Peace.

 _Damn peace_.  Kariban cursed under his breath. He’d suffered countless indignities for peace—the violence of combat, repressing his emotions, even Master Deceivar—all in the belief that one day, if he bore them valiantly, he’d be strong enough to bring an end to the back and forth of war. Now, the idea of peace taunted him like waves crashing over a thirsty man.

Kariban sighed and looked around him. Even the quiet stillness of his room was starting to irritate him. It was too quiet, too still. Everything about it was harsh and uninviting. He knelt on what was ostensibly a rug, a garish teal thing slashed with broad strokes of ivory, but the thin woven fabric did nothing to ease the ache of the stone floor underneath him. Above, the yellow light crystal cast a sickly, jaundiced hue over the room. From the corner of his eye Kariban saw his chair, shoved at a distracting angle just as he had left it rushing out to meet his Mystic host.

What he wouldn’t give to be back in that demichamber, or anywhere else for that matter. His room felt like a tomb, its thick, windowless, stone walls shuttering him away from the outside world.

Not that the rest of Voss was much better. As scenic as the planet was, Kariban felt like a prisoner. How many weeks had he been here, constantly under the watch of a cold, suspicious people, just to decipher a ridiculous vision?

There was no reason to go on. In fact, there was no _reason_ to it at all.Kariban wasn’t a Voss Mystic. He wasn’t infallible, and he sure as chaos wasn’t committed to the Force vision.  If balance was the issue, he was strong enough in both sides of the Force, he could fight the Empire himself. He didn’t need a damned Sith pureblood.

Why was he even fighting? He wasn’t a Jedi anymore. The fate of the galaxy wasn’t any longer his responsibility. If he wanted to, he could spend the rest of his life relic-hunting, studying spells, and auctioning off the big ticket items. There were worser ways to live than living off of millions of credits from sith antiques sales.

Adventure, money, and no responsibility to anyone else but himself. Kariban couldn’t lie; the idea was appealing.

It wasn’t about the money for him, though. Kariban had become something of a amateur scholar from what he had gleaned from his relics. His mind reeled at how much information could be condensed into spell books, etched into trinkets, and captured within holocrons. He used to think the Jedi were sticklers for documentation—the Sith turned it into an art form.

Once, he’d come across an entire storage room of volumes about the eating habits of an obscure Sith Lord and the arcane magic his meals supposedly represented. That particular trip nearly cost Kariban his right arm, but he’d found a ritualistic knife that made it worth his trouble.

Sadly, that knife was now somewhere in the galaxy, along with most of the other artifacts he’d found. As much as Kariban would have liked to keep his own trove of ancient knowledge, he couldn’t drag all those relics around with him.

Only a few pieces escaped the fate of black market auction, one of which now sat on top of his storage chest. A single, large piece of stone, unremarkable save for its connection to his Jedi spirit guide.

He picked it up, traced its surface with his fingers. The carvings had been weathered smooth over the centuries. Words that once meant something were now decayed nonsense. And yet, there was still great power bound within that ancient rock…

Another curse escaped him. Kariban knew better than to ignore a vision because he didn’t like it. It was the wisdom of the Force speaking through him, after all.

Still, Force visions weren’t prophesies. It wasn’t as if he had to follow it exactly. Bringing balance to the Sith may or may not be necessary to galactic peace. He wasn’t going to decide either way, not just yet. At the very least, Kariban would make the effort to find him. Then he could decide if the Sith pureblood was who he was destined to aid.

 _No, not destined_ , Kariban thought. _A vision is only a glimpse of what’s possible._

So, that was settled—he wouldn’t commit to balancing the Sith. It wa s hardly much of a plan. To be honest, it wasn’t a plan at all, really, just a resolution. But it was reasonable, though, and decisive. For now, that was all Kariban needed. Details and particulars he could worry about later. He’d come up with a plan of action in the morning. Bleary eyed, he collapsed onto his bed and fell asleep on top of the covers.


End file.
